I thought ITF members might be interested in a brief account of a workshop I attended last week at the CIPD HRD Conference at the ExCel Centre. Chris Schiller (Archway Management Development consultant) discussed his version of the familiar training & development cycle: identifying company goals, then gaps in performance, identifying learning needs, analysing them, prioretising & setting learning objectives, devising and agreeing possible solutions, implementation/delivery, and evaluation.
From my own experience of analysing learning needs and devising solutions while I was running TV directors’ and producers’ training for the BBC I discovered the crucial importance of early discussions with the key client decision-making stakeholder(s) who also have practical knowledge of the area in which skills gaps have been identified. Chris placed great emphasis on checking out whether there are any other issues that need solving behind the apparent ones that prompted the call for training. (eg What’s going wrong or not working right in the business at present? If the training requested doesn’t solve things what else could still be going wrong?) Sometimes these might turn out to be quite different external, resources, or internal cultural issues within the company that cannot be addressed by formal training (“Non-training issues”) but in other ways.
The actual Learning Needs Analysis should normally involve 4 clear steps:
1. Scoping the project & Terms of Reference (eg why, what, who, when, where, how much? etc)
2. Performance standards by which to benchmark the learning. (Smaller TV & digital media companies may not have formal Skills Competencies to use as benchmarks for job roles, so as well as initial discussions with senior managers, it may then be necessary to interview one of their key expert practitioners in the relevant work area, and preferably some of the target delegates for the training to ensure it’s tailored as closely as possible to the company’s needs.)
3. Analyse performance gaps & gather data
4. Non-training issues to be addressed
The over-riding theme of this workshop was to ensure the learning solution should meet the business objectives of the client company, both now and in the future, and to involve its senior people at every stage of the process from the initial meetings, through the analysis and data-gathering, choosing from alternative solutions and costs (whether formal face to face sessions, on-site workplace coaching or mentoring etc), to final evaluation.
Finally Chris had an interesting observation on training in the current economic downturn which I thought was very relevant for TV and digital companies: in the current climate you have to develop new business (or sources of production & revenue) to survive, and to do this you need to learn new skills, so you really need to invest in training now…
All obvious good sense perhaps, but you can expect us to try to adopt some of this best practice for our in.indie service to our member companies in future…!